


Maternal Instinct

by a2zmom



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst, Episode Related, Episode: s03e20 The Prom, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-02
Updated: 2013-09-02
Packaged: 2017-12-25 10:32:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/952045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a2zmom/pseuds/a2zmom





	Maternal Instinct

_Can I get you something? I don't have any coffee._  
 _Oh, no thank you, I, uh... You don't drink? Beverages, I mean?_  
 _No, I do. It's just the caffeine. It makes me jittery_. From "The Prom"

It was a bald faced lie. Caffeine had no effect on his dead body. In actuality, he had developed a taste for coffee, as much as he could taste any human food. Bitter with a hint of the earth. Buffy had liked to drag him to the Espresso Pump back when they were both eager to pretend that they weren't all that different than any other couple.

Joyce made small talk for another minute, but he already knew. He was all too familiar with her expression.

He had murdered so many over the years that after a while, he could accurately predict what their final moments would be like. The ones who begged and pleaded. The one who stood completely still, with only an occasional whimper breaking the silence. The ones who screamed and never stopped until they were good and dead.

And then there were the ones who had fought back. One or two of those had actually come close to taking him out, simply due to luck and rage. Almost all of them had been mothers. It had been a source of never ending amusement that what made people fight hardest wasn't self preservation, but a futile attempt to protect their children. Those kills had always been particularly satisfying.

Joyce would lay down her life and fight with her last breath to protect Buffy from the monsters that inhabited the world. It hardly mattered to Joyce that Buffy was the one chosen to fight those monsters. In reality, most of the time, there was little Joyce could do. But there was one creature she could save Buffy from.

And so, Joyce was here to shatter his world. To take away the only thing that had given it meaning in the last hundred years. And he would let her. It didn't much matter whether she believed his pathetic attempt to appear more human or not. She saw him for what he was. And this time, maternal instinct would win.


End file.
